


Darkest Before Dawn

by estel_willow



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kyle is tired, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, So much angst, Vague descriptions of torture, handwavey alien tech, it doesn’t work very well, this is our get-along road trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-12 23:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow
Summary: Michael, realizing that he’d wanted Alex to call him a miserable liar again and fight him, watches him go. If he’d known then that it was the last time he would talk to Alex, he’d have gotten down onto his knees and begged for forgiveness.





	1. not even the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a huge thank you to [InsidiousIntent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent) for the beta.
> 
> This fic was born from a really, _really_ angsty prompt. Of course, I had to take it on (by which I mean I asked people to tell me not to and not a single person stopped me).

“What do you mean, ‘four more years’?” 

Michael’s the first one to break the silence. Alex is standing in front of them all, stoically not allowing his eyes to linger on Michael for any longer than they have to. Everyone else is stuck in stunned silence, looking at Alex like he’s grown an additional head. Or two.

“Precisely that, Guerin,” Alex says calmly. Though he’s nervous about their reactions, he doesn’t let it show. Alex mastered the art of smothering his feelings a long time ago, after all, learned to repress with the best of them. 

“But-” Liz is the one that breaks the silence as Michael just lets out a breath and pushes his fingers through his hair, “-but you weren’t going back.”

“You said your enlistment was almost over,” Kyle added, “We’ve talked about it a lot.” 

“I know,” Alex answers patiently, though he feels anything but. “There are still things that need to be taken care of and I can do that better from inside than on the fringes.”

“You’re talking about Project Shepherd.” 

Michael’s voice is hollow when he speaks and it takes Alex - and the others - by surprise. Ever since Caulfield, Michael’s done everything possible to try and avoid talking about that place, about what happened there. He’s done his best to distance himself from Alex, throwing himself into attempts to make himself happy. Alex can’t deny that it hurts but he understands, even if he would never have done that.

He clears his throat, opening his mouth to answer before thinking better of it and he just gives a sharp, concise nod. 

“You can’t.”

Alex’s eyebrows lift as Michael tells him that he can’t go back in and it’s a fight not to cross his arms over his chest and retort hotly that he can do whatever he wants and Michael has no place to tell him not to. Instead, he takes a deep breath.

“It’s the only way.”

When Michael catches him outside as he’s leaving, Alex grits his teeth at the force behind the tugging at his arm. He turns and looks at Michael, wearied and frustrated but not giving in, not giving an inch. There have only been two people in the world able to unravel him down to his bare-bones and both of them have broken his heart. 

“Alex,” Michael says and he looks wrecked. “No one asked you to get involved like this. It’s not your fight.”

“Isn’t it?” Alex challenges him now since they’re alone. Just the two of them under the New Mexico night, stars twinkling down in silent sympathy, or judgement. Alex doesn’t really know which. “It’s as much my fight as it is Kyle’s, or yours.”

“Your family killed mine,” Michael says, something in his voice snapping. He looks surprised with himself. Alex flinches a little; he doesn’t need the reminder of what happened at Caulfield. He hasn’t been able to forget. The files just keep pushing him deeper and deeper into the mire and he’s covered in the filth of Project Shepherd so completely now he’ll never get clean. “If anyone should be the one to take it down it should be-”

“You?” Alex asks, voice tight. He can feel his eyes burning a little. He knows Michael notices but he gives zero shits. “Sure, go ahead and dismantle a military operation that’s been running for seventy years successfully with government-sanctioned support. Go ahead and not get yourself caught and stuck in a tube while they run tests on you.”

Michael rises to the bait, just like Alex knew he would.

“Fine then!, Be the hero, the Manes legacy’s a tough one to shake,” he snaps, hardly catching himself when Alex flinches again. It’s minute, but Alex’s expressions have always been like that, repressed and hidden by years of necessity. 

He shakes his head and Alex watches his curls bounce with the movement. That one curl that always hangs over Michael’s right eye seems to get stuck on his eyelashes for a moment, tugged down and bouncing up again with extra vigour. 

Alex doesn’t get a chance to defend himself, though he’s not sure that he can. Michael’s right. The Manes Legacy is a quagmire. Michael continues to speak, hurt and anger mixed in with confusion as he says, “Knowing you, Alex, _loving_ you has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

Reeling from those words almost like a physical blow, Alex takes half a step backwards. He sees the way Michael’s eyes widen almost comically, the words spat in his direction taking them both by surprise but Alex… Alex knows that he’s right. His family has done dreadful things to Michael’s, and Michael’s life would have been better - in every conceivable way - if Alex had never met him.

He just nods in acceptance and walks away. He decides that he’ll text a goodbye to Liz and Kyle and Maria when he’s on his way to the base in the morning. 

Michael, realizing that he’d wanted Alex to call him a miserable liar again and fight him, watches him go. If he’d known then that it was the last time he would talk to Alex, he’d have gotten down onto his knees and begged for forgiveness.


	2. no matter who you are or where you are, instinct tells you to go home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eighteeen months later..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to [InsidiousIntent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent) for the beta <3 
> 
> Chapter quote by Laura Marney.

“That’s the last of it,” Alex says, patting the passenger’s door on the side of the truck. He receives a sound that’s something like confirmation and the engine starts, rumbling and pulling away, leaving Alex standing on the sidewalk. 

He’s been back in Roswell for just over two weeks, now, and so far has managed to avoid seeing anyone he knows. Not technically on purpose, after all he’s felt more than a little homesick over the last eighteen months, missing the people and places that he’s familiar with, but he’s been busy trying to tie up loose ends. 

The UFO Emporium’s tinny music reminds him of his teenage years stuck behind that ticket desk, watching people come in and out on a daily basis. That place had been his solace from the horrors of his home life for more reasons than one and it was almost a shame that they’d had to go in and take so many of the exhibits. Grant Green had more official alien tech than he probably knew. It was okay, they’d replaced them all with very realistic looking replicas. 

His head aches, a jolt of pain rocketing down his spine as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. He knew it was too soon to be walking around, after everything, but he has a job to do. A legacy to crush. People to protect.

He’s jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of a familiar voice and sees Kyle cross the empty street to invade his personal space. Kyle looks relieved and squeezes Alex’s upper arm, hesitating only for a moment before Alex lets himself be pulled into a hug, complete with a pat on the back that the doctor immediately apologises for.

“Shit, Alex, I-”

“It’s okay,” Alex smiles, drops his arms from where he’d reached up to hug Kyle back. “I’m pretty much healed anyway.”

The relieved expression on Kyle’s face makes Alex laugh and it feels good. He finally feels light, like maybe he’s in a better position than he has been for years. He claps Kyle on the shoulder and then starts to move, walking down the street towards where his SUV is parked. Kyle falls into step with him relatively easy. 

“When did you get back?” 

“Couple of weeks ago,” Alex answers with a lift of his shoulder. “Sorry I’ve not been in touch sooner, I just- it’s been crazy. Add to that the recovery and we were behind schedule anyway.” 

Kyle nods and Alex recognises the way his expression shifts from friend!Kyle to Doctor Valenti and he stops walking, turns to face Kyle properly and sighs heavily. It’s not resigned, more… fond and patient. 

He knows that Kyle's only looking out for him, that honestly as a result of all those phone calls and long conversations while he was recovering, the way he'd constantly tried to reassure Kyle he was honestly okay, a deep worry was birthed. It comes out every now and then in this doctorly expression. It comes out sometimes in the way that Kyle calls him to check he's eaten that day. And it comes out in the way he's walking Alex to his car, not wanting to let him drive away without a quick once over.

"Come to Max's later," Kyle says with a look that's nothing short of imploring. "I know you're busy," he says, cutting off Alex's argument as to why he couldn't possibly leave and go somewhere to do something _social_, "but one evening won't hurt, and it'll be good to see you. Everyone's missed you."

"I'm sure they've been fine," Alex retorts though he does nod his head. "I'll see what time I finish up tonight and if it's not too late, maybe I'll think about coming along?"

"No maybe about it," Kyle says firmly, watching Alex pull his keys out of the pocket of his BDUs and twirl them around his finger. He looks lighter, Kyle thinks, like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. 

It suits him.

"Fine," Alex relents and it doesn't take much. The noose around his neck that's been there for the past couple of years has finally been loosened. Thrown to the side and abandoned in favour of something better, a freedom and lightness of knowing that he's managed to finally, _finally_ dismantle Shepherd for good. 

"What time should I tell Max to expect you?"

Alex shrugs. "Seven?"

"Seven?"

"I have paperwork." It's a lame excuse and they both know it, but Kyle doesn't look like he's going to argue, knowing when to pick his battles. This wasn't one that he needed to fight since Alex has agreed to come out. "You know, dismantling a covert government operation generates a lot of paperwork. Who'd have thought."

"Mm," Kyle hummed, joining Alex in his sarcasm. "Who'da thunk."

Alex snorts and pulls the driver's door open. "Speaking of, I have to get back to base. Paperwork."

Kyle nods and steps back as Alex shuts the door and Alex hopes that Kyle didn't see the way he winced at the movement. He's frustrated with himself that he still hurts, but then he supposes that after what he went through, he should be grateful he's still alive enough to hurt in the first place.

Grim thoughts firmly at the forefront of his mind, Alex pulls away from the kerb and heads towards Forster's Ranch and the base that he's going to be calling home for the next two and a half years. 

And this time, when his enlistment's up he'll be out for good.

***

"You get lost on the way over, Major?" 

Alex rolls his eyes and picks up a post-it note, scrunching it into a ball and throwing it at Barnes' head. 

"I knew we shoulda made sure you had a bloody Sat Nav in your vehicle." 

"Nah," Fowler chimes in, "the Major's got a pretty decent sense of direction, it was probably Handsome McCheekbones that distracted him."

"What?"

"Barnes, Jesus fuck, just because your brain's firmly between your girlfriend's legs at all times even when you're not doesn't mean you oughta be blind to other hot people around. There was a guy that crossed over to talk to the Major after we left."

"Handsome McCheekbones," Alex interrupts, clearing his throat to smother the way his lips curl up at the ridiculous nickname (that he thinks he'll absolutely use in the near future just to embarrass Kyle), "is Kyle Valenti."

The office falls quiet as everyone worries they've insulted their superior officer by making jokes about the 'closest person the Major has to a best friend'. Outside of Barnes, of course, because Barnes was with him in Iraq and if anyone can call the Major 'Alex' and out on his bullshit, it's Barnes. 

"Shiiiiit."

"I'm gonna tell him you guys think he's pretty," Alex says with a toothy grin, letting himself sink down at his desk with a slight groan. "I'm pretty sure he's straight, but I'll give him your number, Fowler. Maybe you'll be able to tempt him over with your scrawny arms and pale, pale skin."

"So pale," Barnes echoes. 

"You guys remember when he stripped in the desert?" Archie pipes up, ginger head appearing over the triple monitor setup he has on his desk. Barnes barks out a laugh and Fowler huffs already in dismay at the story. "And that one guy from the 106th yelled about Gondor calling for aid?"

Alex leans back into the chair and feels it supporting his weight, bones aching even as the office around him erupts in laughter. 

It'll be good, he thinks, to see his friends later. It's been a long year and a half, or maybe just over that. He's not sure, there's a four-month period that he's hazy on, that's a little blank and patchy, coming to him in flashes in the middle of the night, always waking him in a cold sweat, more so when he was finally released from the hospital. 

But if he wants to get to Max’s before midnight, he has to get on with the paperwork on his desk which seems to have grown exponentially. When he glances up, Barnes, Fowler and Archie are all studying their desks intently and Green gets up to make himself a cup of coffee.

Bastards, Alex thinks, filled with affection. Utter fucking bastards.

***

It’s late by the time he gets to Max’s place. The drive feels unfamiliar, as well it should he supposes; he hasn’t done it that much. He’s never really had the need to. It’s closer to eight-thirty when he arrives but that doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone. They’re all just happy he’s there. 

Liz and Kyle are first out to greet him. He gets wrapped in a hug from both sides that’s fiercer than he was anticipating. For a moment, he thinks Kyle’s told Liz about what happened, the months when Barnes was on the phone to Kyle trying to convince him not to fly out to the other side of the damn country to take care of his former-and-possibly-still best friend. The aftermath of the time Alex can’t really remember… But Liz just kisses his cheek and tucks herself underneath his chin and holds on tight as Kyle’s arms come around them both.

For Alex, it feels like coming home. He sinks into the hug and squeezes Liz tightly, lifting a hand to curl around Kyle’s forearm. Kyle’s been great; they’ve talked over the phone a lot and he’s been catching up on a lot of the ‘gossip’, as much as Kyle can be bothered to gossip, so Alex knows that Rosa has been reintegrated into society and Isobel spent weeks ‘editing’ people’s memories so that she never died, only ‘went travelling’. Alex knows that Max was resurrected six months ago and lives his life in a permanent state of semi-confusion at the moment while he recovers from the effects of just over a year in stasis. He knows that Max and Liz currently aren’t a couple, because they’re trying to sort through their issues without falling into the trap of ‘sex and no talking’ which happened four times in the first two weeks as soon as Max had the strength to stand.

Alex thinks that sounds a little familiar, but he can’t - for the life of him - think of why.

He gets hug from Max - and Isobel - when they lead him in and they both tell him he’s looking well and that they’re pleased to see him, which is weird enough in and of itself. He knows he’s been working hard to help secure their secret and with good cause. His family has a horrific legacy and he’s doing his best to protect them, and the others that he’s found over the last eighteen months.

He’s got a beer in his hand and a burger on the grill when he asks, “Where’s Maria?”

The silence that falls over the area makes him feel a little uneasy, watching the discomfited expressions on the faces of the people he considers to be family. It’s been a hard road, though he’s forgiven Kyle for what happened when they were in high school it took him a while to do so and he knows he’s within his rights, but these people are his family. He sure as hell doesn’t have any actual family left; his mom’s forwarding address is empty and his siblings - and his father - are serving time in a military jail for their parts in a huge project that had veered wildly off course. So much of Shepherd, and it’s bigger project, Gabriel, was off the books. 

“What?”

“I’m here,” Maria says quietly, emerging from deep inside the house. Behind her trails a taller guy with a sort of hesitant swagger and a black cowboy hat on his head. He takes it off when his eyes fall on Alex and it reveals a head of bouncing golden curls that Alex has the bizarrest urge to run his fingers through. His mouth goes dry.

Not letting himself be shocked for too long, he puts down his beer and holds his arms open for her, registering her surprise which makes him hesitate.

“I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” she says, “after the way things were when you left.”

Alex, confused, just shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t remember what they fought about, only that they fought and he regrets it. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you, Maria?” he asks, “C’mere.” 

He meets her halfway, pulls her into his arms and hugs her tightly. He feels her melting against him. Her relaxation speaks of the lifting of a burden she’s been carrying for a long time, something that’s weighed her down. He has no idea what that might be, but he makes a note to ask her as soon as they’re alone.

Behind her, Cowboy is hovering nervously. He looks anxious, rocking his weight from foot to foot and he keeps flexing his left hand when it’s not pushing through his hair. Alex can see the oil stains on his jeans, he’s probably a mechanic of some kind, and the tiredness behind his eyes which indicates he works long hours so probably has a second job of some kind. The belt buckle catches Alex’s eye and for a split second, his mind drifts somewhere else entirely before Maria’s leaning back, breaking the train.

He squeezes her upper arms and gives her a small smile, jerking his chin in the direction of the Cowboy.

“You gonna introduce me to your boyfriend, Maria?” Alex asks, only faintly registering the sudden intake of breath from behind him and then the uneasy laughter from Kyle and Max. He watches Cowboy’s eyes widen and then shutter, his body language closing off in an instant, defensive and shut down and almost hostile. Alex wonders what he said wrong because the whole atmosphere of the room has changed. 

“Alex,” she starts, looking uneasy.

Not one to be impolite, Alex steps forward. He knows what it’s like to be on the outside of a close group of people looking in, when no one seems to want to include you and honestly since they don’t look like they’ve been doing anything inappropriate in the back room they’ve been hiding out for some random reason. Holding out a hand to shake, he stands in front of Cowboy. 

“Alex Manes,” he says, having not quite shaken the professional tone from his voice whenever he introduces himself. Years of military greetings have sort of drilled it into him. “I’m probably a few months too late to give the threatening ‘if you hurt her I’ll break your legs’ talk but…”

He trails off when Cowboy doesn’t reach out to shake his hand. In fact, Cowboy’s looking at him like Alex has just plunged a dagger into his back and kicked his puppy. Everyone else is looking really, _really_ confused and Alex lets his hand drop.

“Alex,” Liz starts slowly, “this isn’t funny.”

“What’s not funny?” he asks, feeling the heat of embarrassment crawl up the back of his neck in uncomfortable prickles. It’s creeping up his spine and along the edges of his jaw, making him feel like goosebumps are rising along his skin. 

Turning to look at Kyle and then Max, both of whom had laughed as though he’d made a non-PC joke, Alex lifts his eyebrow. 

“Why do I feel like you guys know something I don’t?” he asks, trying not to feel defensive but it’s a throwback to being laughed at in the locker rooms and those few years under DADT and those first years being out in the Air Force before he met Barnes and Archie and started building his own unit of people who didn’t give a shit who he was attracted to as long as he kept them alive while doing so. 

“It’s okay,” Cowboy says and he sounds defeated. Alex doesn’t understand why. “Probably overstayed my welcome anyway.”

“No,” Maria is quick to interject at the same time as Liz says, “you don’t have to leave, Michael.”

Michael. The name suits him, and at least he’s got something to call him now. His head aches a little, that sort of dull throb he’s become acquainted with. He’s not sure what triggers it, Kyle thinks it’s residual trauma; Barnes had said that Alex was in a mess, catatonic, when they found him, in an abandoned facility in the wilderness in Montana. He doesn’t remember anything of the four months he was held there, or the three months afterwards when he was in recovery in a secure military facility. 

He sucks in a breath, only half mindful that there are a couple of conversations going on around him. His head’s pounding, vision swimming slightly and his fingers lift to press into his temple. He can hear Cowboy’s voice - Mark? Gu- Mi- Gary? No, fuck, what was his name? Had Alex been given it? - rising above it all and as it reaches a fever pitch around him and his head feels like it’ll explode something else does instead.

The windows in Max’s place shatter, blowing outwards the same way they do in response to the shockwaves from a bomb ripple in the air. His first instinct is to grab Maria - who’s closest to him - and shield her from the explosion but there isn’t one. 

Cowboy looks guilty and horrified, and then ashamed. He grabs his hat and leaves, though Isobel and Max - and then Liz and Maria - hurry out after him. That leaves him and Kyle and an increasing sense of confusion and irritation sweeping through Alex that makes him feel a little breathless.

“Alex,” Kyle starts and his voice is gentle. It’s his ‘calm down, I won’t hurt you’ voice, his ‘you can trust me, I’m a doctor’ voice and Alex hates it. He even hates that Kyle’s approaching him slowly, like he’s a wounded deer. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’ve got a headache,” Alex replies, feeling grumpier the more it registers that something’s going on. Everyone’s left and, distantly, he can hear commotion and voices near where all the trucks are parked. “And feel like I should probably go.”

He moves to step away but his knees buckle slightly. Kyle’s in his space in a fraction of a second, under his arm, supporting his weight and though honestly, he wants to tell Kyle to leave him alone he’s ninety percent sure that if Kyle lets go, he’s going to crash to the floor.

Fuck.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Kyle says once Alex is settled and steadied in a lawn chair. “You did.” His jaw’s set unhappily. “That’s cruel, you know?”

“Says you,” Alex fires back before he can help himself, wincing and apologising a second later. “Sorry, Kyle, I shoudn’t have said that.”

“No, you’ve got a point. But you know as well as I do that I’m not that guy anymore.” Alex nods, and Kyle continues. “But you’ve never been that guy, so what’re you doing?”

Alex looks at him, blankly. He doesn’t understand the question. “Was I not supposed to introduce myself to-” his mind trips over the name, it’s on the tip of his tongue but it’s not spilling out, “-Maria’s cowboy boyfriend?” 

“They broke up a year ago, not long after Max, uh,” Kyle waves his hand demonstratively, “woke up.” 

Alex feels his brows furrow. “You’ve been filling me in on some of the most random of Roswell’s gossip and shit, and you didn’t tell me that Maria got a boyfriend while I was away? Or that they broke up?” 

He can feel his chest tightening in a familiar, protective anger. He hasn’t felt it in a long time, but it’s there and it’s swelling and he takes a deep breath in and pushes it out. He looks at Kyle. “Did he hurt her?” Physically, emotionally, whatever. Alex’ll break his knees. “Did he break up with her?”

“No- no, dude, chill.” Kyle moves closer and sits on the foot of the large wooden chair Alex has been folded into. “She broke up with- wait- you’re telling me you have no idea who Michael is?”

Kyle looks like a lightbulb went off in his head, like the little dude-bro that occasionally controls Kyle’s brain-to-mouth filter had an epiphany and pulled the switch. 

_Michael_, Alex thinks, okay, at least he has a name for the not-boyfriend Cowboy. 

“Maria’s Cowboy, right?” He asks, almost hesitantly because he’s sure that there’s a reason he’s referring to the guy as ‘Cowboy’ but he isn’t sure why that is. “That guy? Why’d he leave? What did I say?”

Kyle rubs a hand over his face and he’s gone from being concerned-doctor-friend to full blown Doctor Valenti. Alex recognises the shift.

“You’re telling me you have no idea who that guy was?”

“Should I?”

Kyle lets out a laugh that’s somewhere between hysterical and concerned. It’s not a good sound. “That’s Michael Guerin, Alex. _Your_ Michael Guerin.”

Alex blinks. He tilts his head, trying to think about a time he’s even known a guy named Michael, let alone had one to call his own and he’s coming up with a blank. He narrows his eyes a little, feeling defensive. This has to be some kind of prank. Alex has never been to college so he hasn’t been hazed before, not the way he assumes Kyle was as a pledge, but he doesn’t like it. 

“Kyle, I’ve never seen that guy before in my life.” He adds, after a moment, “And I’m pretty sure I’d remember.” He knows that for certain, even if he’s having trouble remembering the details of the guy. Black hat and curls. Honey-coloured eyes. Sharp features. Everything else is blurring away. 

Kyle shakes his head. “No, Alex, you- you don’t- Fuck.”

He gets to his feet and pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket, dialling a number that he has in his easy to access contacts list. 

“Luke?” he says, head tipped into the phone and fingers raking through his hair. Alex watches and wonders why the fuck Kyle’s on the phone to Barnes. And, more importantly, why the fuck Barnes is picking up calls from Kyle within the first two rings. “Yeah- I- I’m sorry okay? This is important.” Kyle starts pacing, moving away from Alex. It means Alex can only catch snippets. He’d get up and follow, but he isn’t sure he can; the world’s still spinning slightly around him and vertigo would take him out if he moved too fast. “Sure that… Montana… back clear?” 

Alex narrows his eyes and leans forward to try and hear what Kyle’s saying, like it’ll make him suddenly develop better hearing, but it doesn’t work. What does happen, however, is that the group that left after Ma- Me- Mi- fuck, after _Cowboy_ come back over, his truck rumbling away and not a single one of them looks happy.

“What the hell,” Max starts, all testosterone and aggression and Alex doesn’t understand why but it’s enough to make him uncomfortable. He gets to his feet even though he shouldn’t and Liz slinks between him and Max, pushing on Max’s chest. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Manes? You spend all this time trying to protect us, to shut down your family legacy only to come back and do-”

“Do what?” Alex asks, teeth gritted and chin lifted in challenge. “Be polite? I don’t understand what’s wrong with you all! I don’t-”

“It’s not them that’s got something wrong,” Kyle says, hurrying back in and putting himself between LizandMax and Alex, protective and looking irritatedly in the direction of his friends. Their friends. “Let’s just go inside, okay? We can talk about this.”

“No,” Alex says at the same time that Max announces, “The hell we are.” 

That settles it for him. He can’t deny it doesn’t hurt, but Max is all but kicking him off his property anyway and Alex has always been keenly aware when he isn’t wanted. “I think I’ve overstayed _my_ welcome.” His keys are still in his pocket and he’s sure he can at least get into town and stop for a bit before driving out the other side to the cabin. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kyle.”

And with Kyle’s voice calling out for him to stay mixing with Liz and Maria’s, and Isobel’s voice trying to talk Max down as the lights on the property flickered with his anger - at Alex, though he has no idea why - Alex climbs into his car and leaves.

Well _that_ was a clusterfuck.


	3. sometimes we survive by forgetting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We gonna talk about what happened at Max’s?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [InsidiousIntent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent) for handholding and error spotting, and to [Beamirang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beamirang) and [MandsAngelfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandsAngelfox) for cheerleading. *blows a kiss*

Alex isn’t expecting Barnes to be standing on the porch of the cabin when he gets home. He’s got take out in a paper bag in his hand and nudges the car door shut with his hip and Barnes is leaning against the pillar of the porch with his arms folded across his chest and dark leather jacket hugging his shoulders and biceps.

Alex pointedly doesn’t notice.

He locks the car and walks carefully - because his head still fucking hurts, but it’s easing and the vertigo’s stopped being quite so crippling - up the two steps to the front door and opens it, completely ignoring Lucas fucking Barnes who’s watching him with a very familiar look of polite concern that’ll pretty soon degrade into full-on mother-henning. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t _need_ that. Not right now. 

He walks into the cabin and doesn’t bother shutting the door because Barnes walks right in after him like some kind of uninvited peacock and closes it behind himself. 

“We gonna talk about what happened at Max’s?”

Barnes’ voice, as always, cuts through the silence Alex wishes would just be left to hang in the air. He presses his lips together and heads into the kitchen, leg aching and head still lingeringly sore. He puts the take-out on the table.

“I didn’t buy enough for two.”

“It’s nearly ten-thirty,” Barnes deadpans, “I’ve already eaten. Some of us manage to eat at normal times of the day, like humans.”

Alex’s eyes cut to the broad-shouldered brunette who’s leaning against the doorframe with a shit-eating grin and Alex wants to throw something at him. He resists because Barnes would catch it, and last time they’d started throwing things at each other it had started a four-day prank war that had only ended when the flour parcel meant for Alex landed on the General’s head. 

“I’m really not in the mood, Luke, what do you want?”

“I came to check you were okay, for a start,” Barnes says, “which obviously you’re fine because you’re your normal asshole self. I clearly didn’t need to worry.” Before Alex can comment, he continues talking and moves forward, hand gently resting on Alex’s shoulder and squeezing softly, “But Kyle called me and he sounded more freaked out than he has any right to. And so now I’m freaked out.”

“Because Maria’s boyfriend apparently hates me even though we’ve never met?” Alex asks, sourly. “Or because they broke up and no one thought to tell me they were dating in the first place?” The container of pad thai is placed a little too roughly on the table. The lid pops open. He swats at Barnes’ hand - sharply - when it reaches over to try and steal a piece of shrimp. “Or the part where everyone decided it’d be a really funny joke to tell me I knew the guy when I don’t?”

Barnes leans his hips against the table. “Do we need to call Weaver?”

“No,” Alex snaps, but he’s tired and frustrated. “I got given the all-clear from her a while ago, you know that.”

“But she said to call if anything out of the ordinary happened, and this- this is out of the ordinary, Alex.”

“It’s not. Look, I’m not great at meeting new people, so it’s no fucking surprise that somehow I insulted the guy before I even spoke. But it’s not my fault he freaked out and left. I was _polite_.”

“No, it’s not,” Barnes agreed, “and honestly it’s a surprise he stuck around for as long as he did, fucking arsehole.”

Alex plops himself down at the table and grumbles an agreement, tugging the cardboard box closer to himself and stabbing his wooden fork into it. 

“But Alex, I- look, you trust me not to fuck with you, right?” 

Alex looks up at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes, but Barnes is wearing that sincere expression that he only wears when he’s being completely serious. Alex doesn’t see it often and when he does he knows that whatever is happening is worth worrying about. Ninety percent of the time, that expression is aimed at him because Barnes is fussing around him and is afraid he’s not coping well. 

Barnes has seen Alex at his lowest, and at his most vulnerable. Barnes knows him better than anyone in the world. He could say it was the same the other way around, except Barnes deflects emotional trauma better than any bulletproof vest and his only source of angst comes from his insane, intense desire to protect Alex from the fucking world. 

“Most of the time,” he admits, begrudgingly, definitely not shovelling food into his mouth but sort of shovelling food into his mouth. He’s hungry, his burger never got cooked and he hasn’t eaten since lunch. 

“Then we- I gotta tell you something and you have to promise to listen, okay?”

Alex narrows his eyes again but he just nods. 

Barnes blows out a breath and rubs them both over his face, through his hair and then rests his palms flat on the table, kicking out a chair so he can sit down and look Alex in the eye. His face is flat and serious, eyes worried and Alex can’t help but feel a clench in his stomach. 

“Maria’s boyfriend,” he says, “or, well, her ex. He’s a dick and I wish you’d never met him but-”

“But what?” 

“But you have met him, Alex.” He’s not put off when Alex responds immediately with _bullshit_, “He’s your Museum Guy.” 

“Who?”

Barnes frowns, looks even more concerned - if that’s physically possible - and taps his fingers on the table. He does that when he’s feeling anxious or when he’s not sure what to say. Alex is pretty sure, in this case, that it’s both. 

“Are you being serious right now?” 

Alex narrows his eyes. Barnes takes that for what it is.

“Okay, fine.” 

He rubs his hand over his face and returns to his rhythmic tapping against the table, the sound drives them both insane but there’s not much either of them can do about it. It helps Barnes think. 

“So you’re being serious.”

“I think I’d know if I’d had a museum guy,” Alex points out, tone churlish. “As it stands, I’ve never ‘had’ a guy in a museum in any way, shape or form. Which is a great reminder as to the dumpster fire that is my love life and romantic history, so thanks for that.” 

But there is something, something tugging at the back of Alex’s mind, the way his brain hurts as he thinks about the UFO Emporium, the way that it had when he was standing outside of it yesterday. 

Barnes has the decency to look guilty, “I know we made an agreement to never talk about him-”

“-who?”

“Michael,” Barnes repeats patiently.

“Michael?”

Barnes blinks, take a breath and then says, “Maria’s Cowboy?” 

Alex nods, irritation rippling through him. He remembers… curly hair and a black hat. And a belt buckle? A large belt buckle. He chews his lower lip, curls his fingers into his palm and breathes in through his nose. He can’t remember what the guy looks like, even though he saw him earlier. Met him, in fact, for the first time despite what everyone around him keeps saying.

“What about him?”

“Well,” Barnes says, breezing right back into the conversation as though they hadn’t just talked in circles, “we made an agreement not to talk about him-”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a fucking knobjockey and deserves a swift punch in the face. But I’m gonna have to bre-”

“He was rude,” Alex interrupts, voice soft and pensive. “But he looked at me like I’d hurt him. Like I’d upset him. And so did everyone else.”

“Unintentionally,” Barnes murmurs, reaching over and catching Alex’s hand. It’s a gesture that’s familiar in all the right ways and a few hazy ones, “You probably did.”

Alex narrows his eyes again and tenses a little, but Barnes catches his fingers. His expression’s open and reassuring and Alex knows that there’s no way Barnes would collude with anyone to haze him. 

Not after everything that they’ve been through.

“Start talking,” he orders and Barnes gets to his feet to get them a beer. He comes back with two small glasses and a three-quarters full bottle of whiskey.

He starts talking.

***

“Bullshit.”

“Alex-”

“_Bullshit_.”

“Jesus fuck, mate, do you really think I’d lie to you?” Barnes watches Alex get to his feet and push away from the table, walking out of the small kitchen area and into the living room. Barnes gets to his feet a second later and follows. “After _everything_ we’ve been through, do you really think-”

“You expect me to believe that I’ve missing ten years of memories about _one specific person_? No, Luke, that’s not how fucking amnesia works. I told you I’ve never met the guy before and I’m- I-”

Alex catches his weight on the back of the couch and Barnes watches, with increasing concern, as the pinched expression of anger on his face becomes something that looks a lot more like pain. The same pain that Alex had flares of after they’d rescued him, the same ones that hit him viciously when he was recovering in hospital and passed out every time they tried to question him about those months he was gone, held behind enemy lines. 

“Hey, shit, Alex it’s okay.” 

Barnes catches Alex’s upper arms gently, guiding him to the couch and not letting go until they’re both sat down, bodies sinking into the beaten pillows. 

“It’s okay, man, just- fuck, breathe.”

“Don’t patronise me, Luke, I’m not- this is bullshit. You don’t just selectively forget a person.”

“You don’t remember the time you were gone, either,” Barnes points out gently and Alex just scowls at him. “Look, we still don’t know what they did to you. It took us fucking forever to find you and I’m so-”

“I told you before,” Alex interrupts, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“I was meant to be watching you,” Barnes lets go of Alex and braces his forearms on his thighs, fingers linked together. “We shoulda had your back.”

“You found me,” Alex says gently, leaning forward. “And normally I’d offer a bit more comfort but my fucking head hurts and-“

“Yeah, lie down. I’ll call Kyle.”

Alex narrows his eyes a little but does as he’s told.

“You know, it weirds me out how well you two get along.” 

Barnes just grinned and flopped a nearby blanket over Alex’s face and walked away as his friend and CO fussed with the blanket to get comfortable.

“Get comfy and take a nap, Manes. Valenti and I need to go paint our nails and talk shit about you.”

***

The next morning, they head out. Barnes bitches for an hour about how his back hurts from crashing on the couch and then spends another hour bitching that Alex has a camp bed and not a real bed and claiming that they’d need to sort that before the weekend otherwise, he’s calling the boys over to build him a goddamned extension. They have coffee and breakfast - _fucking hell, Manes, when was the last time you bought actual, real food?_ \- and the quickest set of showers on record before they leave. It takes less time to get to Max’s place than either Alex or Barnes hoped it would. Alex has been repeating facts aloud to try and make them stay at the forefront of his memory for the entire drive, checking his understanding with Barnes who - because he’s a great friend - had corrected mistakes when they crept in. 

“You want me to come in with you?” 

Alex wants to say yes, but he doesn’t. He just shakes his head once and unbuckled himself, rubbing at his temples and knocking back the two pain pills that Barnes produces seemingly out of nowhere.

Barnes shoots him a grin that’s more charming than Alex wants to admit. “You sure you don’t me to come in?”

“I’m sure,” he replies with an affectionate smile. “I’m pretty sure if I need a walking pharmacy in there, Kyle’ll have me covered.”

Barnes snorts and flexes his fingers around the steering wheel. “I can wait? If you want?”

Alex draws a breath and pushes open the car door, leaning down to look back inside once he’s stepped out. “Honestly,” he reassures, or tries to, he can tell that it’s not working. Barnes has a very expressive face off base. “Seriously, Luke, I’m fine.” 

“You’ll-”

“If anything happens, I’ll call you.” Alex pats the top of the car and steps away, shutting the door with a “don’t wait up, mom, I’ll be home late.”

Barnes flips him off and flashes his lights three times as a silent ‘fuck you, arsehole’, which makes Alex chuckle. As he reaches the front door, he hears the sound of tyres crunching on gravel as Barnes pulls away and the receding sound of the engine as he drives off down the road.

Alex takes a deep breath and pushes the door open, hating that he can feel anxiety gnawing at his stomach. These people are his friends. His _family_. Michael, if Barnes is right, is his family. 

He swallows and steps inside. There’s already a hubbub of conversation, that low level where people are just talking for the sake of it and, as his feet cross the threshold, it falls silent.

***

Everyone’s standing - or sitting - in Max’s living room. Michael’s sitting on the couch with Isobel on one side and Liz on the other. Max is perched on the arm, his hand resting against Liz’s back, thumb brushing over the fabric in a move that Alex is sure is more for himself than it is for her. Maria and Kyle are standing near the breakfast bar beside the stools that were covered in worn, soft-looking leather. Maria and Michael both look wildly uncomfortable, Alex can’t help but notice the way the air’s crackling with awkwardness and uncertainty.

Glasses filled with various liquids - both amber and clear - are resting on various flat surfaces because it’s five o’clock somewhere. Michael’s got a bottle of water in his hands and he’s picking restlessly at the label. He doesn’t have his cowboy hat on; it’s resting on the desk behind the couch like it’d been haphazardly abandoned there and everyone’s expressions are set in concern.

Alex doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it at all. There’s a fine line between concern and pity and his friends keep stepping dangerously close to it. 

“Hey Alex,” Liz says, getting to her feet and pulling him into a hug. He squeezes his arms around her and does his best not to cling to her. She kisses his cheek and stands down, squeezing his upper arm and pats his chest as she untangles herself and heads to sit down again and Alex watches her put her hand on Michael’s knee. “We were just waiting for you.”

Alex, uneasy, sits in the armchair that’s set a little way away from everyone else. He watches Michael who’s doing his very best not to watch him and he clears his throat. “I- I’m sorry, Michael,” he says after a moment, watching how the man’s amber eyes widen slightly, flick towards him and an expression that’s akin to tentative hope. “Barnes-”

“Barnes filled him in,” Kyle interrupts and Alex feels himself scowling slightly. He’s got some kind of odd amnesia, he’s not completely lost his faculties. Kyle raises his hand in apologetic supplication at the glare he’s shot. 

“And Barnes is who?” That’s Max’s voice. 

“A friend,” Alex says, maybe a little too sharply. “He’s a member of my unit, he’s been a part of my team for years, and he’s on the squad that helped me take down Project Shephard once and for all.” 

“We’ll have to thank him,” Michael mutters sarcastically and Alex spots Isobel squeezing his knee a little more firmly than necessary as he pulls away from her.

“We owe you,” Isobel says, looking up with a small smile, looking sadder than she should. He knows she’s had it tough; her husband turned out to be an alien serial killer who’d abused and used her for a decade, her brother died bringing Rosa back to life and she’d had to handle it alone- no, not alone. She had Mi- She’d had her other brother. There were three aliens. 

“You don’t. You really don’t. I did what anyone would have done. What Shepherd was doing to your family, what Gabriel was doing to your people was wro-”

“Gabriel?”

“Shepherd was part of a wider project called Project Gabriel,” Alex informs, “We had to shut it down from the top. Couldn’t have done it without my team. The few survivors we found have been relocated. Once they’ve recovered from their medical treatment and are resettled with the requisite protections, the US government has promised they’ll be left alone and I’ve made sure that you can have passes to see them.”

He’s arranged for two passes, but a third would be easy enough to add. After all, Mi- Mik- _Michael_ needed a pass, too. 

Kyle glances over at Alex, then Michael, and then up at Max. “I’m just sorry that we didn’t get it all sorted before Caulfield.” 

Michael winces and Alex feels a ripple of confusion, a part of him that knows he should feel guilty hearing that name but he doesn't know why. The prison was destroyed, someone triggered the failsafe. By the time Alex and his team had found the name in the files that he had - since the Shepherd ones were left behind and he hadn’t been able to call Kyle to check in - the building was nothing but a smouldering hunk of rubble and rock. Anything that might have been inside was destroyed. He’d been surprised to find that Kyle had hard drives from there, but not as surprised as Kyle was when Alex asked for them as though he hadn’t remembered how they’d been obtained.

“It’s okay,” Michael says after a moment, glancing up at Alex and trying for a smile but it falls short. Alex thinks he has a nice smile, but his eyes are sad, large and sorrowful and his fingers flex around the plastic water bottle like he wishes it was something else, something made of glass and full of beer. Or whiskey laced with acetone.

Alex feels a jolt in his head, that sharp pain that lances through him like a hot knife through butter. His vision whites out briefly. He draws in a breath, now isn’t the time. He imagines that somewhere on the road to town, Barnes’ ears are metaphorically pricking up as his Alex-is-in-pain senses explode.

“It’s not,” Kyle says, but M- the hatless cowboy with the curls cuts him off. 

“Can we not?” he asks, and Max takes it as a cue to move, getting to his feet.

“Anyway,” Max starts, clearing his throat and moving around to the desk behind the couch. Alex tracks his movements with a pinched feeling behind his eyes, digging his fingers into his temple like that’ll help soothe the pain. 

It doesn’t.

“Anyway,” Max repeats, tapping his fingers against the wood and throwing the black hat back towards the person sitting between Liz and Isobel. “Now that Shepherd’s shut down I wanted to talk to everyone about something else Noah said to me, about how the people that destroyed our home planet will probably come here.” His expression’s grave. “That they’ll be looking for us, and if they wiped out a planet with interstellar travel abilities there’s not much hope for Earth.”

Kyle and Maria snort from where they’re standing on the opposite side of the room to him. His arched eyebrow questions the amusement and Kyle just shrugs and makes a comment about how he’s seen Independence Day so Max shouldn't count the Earthlings out just yet. It makes Liz and Isobel laugh. Their couch companion, however, doesn’t move. He’s twisted to look at Max and Alex finds himself admiring his profile for a moment, dragging his own gaze back to Max.

“We need to start talking about preparations.” Max looks like he’s stepping into shoes he doesn’t suit; the shoes of a leader. He’s got the frowning body language and the tone to his words but he’s afraid and Alex can see it.

“I can help,” he volunteers. Max looks immeasurably relieved. “And if you’re positive that Noah wasn’t just lying to frighten you into letting him go, then the General’s going to want to know, too.” 

He wets his lower lip and gets to his feet, feeling his leg ache a little but he ignores it. His head’s hurting more anyway, it's drowning out any other pains he might be feeling. 

They start talking logistics. Alex calls Archie and tells him to assemble the team, to get to the base and to get ready for a long night of interrogation. 

“Yeah,” Alex says into his phone, “and arrange guest passes for the others.” He mentally counts everyone in the room and when he comes to the guy with the curly hair he pauses. He looks around, aware that Curly’s eyes are on him and he’s fiddling with that black cowboy hat. “And an extra one.”

He steps outside, looking to get air and when Archie asks him for the extra name he draws a blank. He feels like he knows the guy, or he _should_ know the guy but he doesn’t.__

_ _“Alex?”_ _

_ _“Hang on, Arch.”_ _

_ _He turns to see Kyle leaning against the door. “You okay?”_ _

_ _“Yeah,” he replies, covering up his discomfort with some heavy sarcasm, “wondering when you guys all lost your manners since no one thought to introduce me to the new guy.”_ _

_ _“New gu-“ Kyle’s face falls. “Oh, _Alex_.”_ _

_ _Alex suppresses the irritation at the gentle, careful, _Doctor_ tone that Kyle takes with him, the way his shoulders drop and his whole body softens, his head tilting to the side in the way he does when he’s Doctoring at someone. Alex has seen it enough. _ _

_ _“Leave the pass name empty, Arch, we’ll fill it in when we get there. Be ready for civilians in forty minutes.”_ _

_ _He hangs up after that, pays attention to Kyle who’s looking at him like he might break._ _

_ _“What?”_ _

_ _“Alex, that’s Michael. You- you spoke to him earlier. Barnes told me that he’d told you everything.”_ _

_ _“I-“ Alex felt his vision blur. He remembered talking to Barnes at the cabin, the look of worry, but he couldn’t remember what they were talking about. “I don’t-“_ _

_ _“Don’t what?” The Cowboy’s voice interrupts Alex’s struggling mental processors and Alex glances up at him, apologetic even before saying anything._ _

_ _“I think I’m supposed to know you,” he says, and he watches Cowboy’s - Michael’s, since Kyle just named him again - face fall. “But I- I don’t. I’m sorry.”_ _

_ _Cowboy Michael shutters up, wraps his arms around himself and turns away._ _

_ _“Maybe,” Kyle murmurs, pulling his phone out, “we should focus less on a future threat and more on the more pressing problem, or - uh - question we have in right in front of us.” _ _

_ _“Which is?” Alex is almost afraid to ask, but Kyle has that set to his lips that Alex knows all too well. _ _

_ _“What the fuck did they do to you in Montana?”_ _


	4. there is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alex doesn’t really remember Montana. He wakes in the middle of the night, sometimes, in a cold sweat with his heart in his throat and wrists and shoulders aching sharply. He wakes with the ghost of a scream on the edge of his lips and is quick to temper it, to bite down on it and push it away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, life took a rough turn and my inspiration tumbled down into a black hole but I'm back! 
> 
> Quote by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Alex doesn’t really remember Montana. He wakes in the middle of the night, sometimes, in a cold sweat with his heart in his throat and wrists and shoulders aching sharply. He wakes with the ghost of a scream on the edge of his lips and is quick to temper it, to bite down on it and push it away.

Alex doesn’t really remember Montana. The one time he asked Barnes about it, the look on his face told Alex that he should never ask again. 

Alex doesn’t really remember Montana, but that hasn’t stopped him wanting to know. After all, it’s his life, his injuries, his memories that are missing, but he’s never really been driven to find anything out until now. Until now when he’s got a notebook in front of him with the name _Michael Guerin_ written in front of him in his own handwriting with no idea who that person is, or why reading that name causes a dull ache behind his eyes to spark up like he’s been squinting at a screen in a dimly lit room for fourteen hours straight. Until now when he’s got no idea what’s actually going on inside his own mind because on the next page is written _Maria’s cowboy_ and _Maria’s ex boyfriend_ and _my ex something_ and _Michael Guerin_ in a spiderweb-like mindmap, lines drawn from that name spiralling outwards.

He feels insane.

He feels like he should know Michael Guerin, everyone else in his life says he should, and Barnes - patiently repeating the same facts over and over again and managing somehow to hold in his dislike for the cowboy-mechanic - isn’t the type to fuck about with something this serious. Neither is Kyle. His hazing frat boy days are long behind him.

He feels like he should know Michael Guerin.

But he doesn’t.

***

He would say the reports are laughably easy to find but that would be a grievous insult to Barnes, who had never really hidden anything. Alex is sure that a part of Barnes was aware that one day the temptation would be too great and he’d crumble and look it up. 

Of course, what he thinks is in the reports, what he thought might have been recorded, isn’t what he finds.

> _Report #304  
After narrowing down the search field, Alpha team located a hidden base in [REDACTED], Montana. Preliminary findings identified an abnormal heat signature and power surge in a remote area not identified or recorded on any USAF maps. TSgt Jenkins checked with Army and contact in NCIS and confirmed that the location is not a known black site._
> 
> _Fowler was finally able to decrypt the final drive from BS#32, designated Hollowford. Location confirmed as operational base for Project Gabriel. Intel fed to Colonel Howard to process._
> 
> _[...]_
> 
> _Rescue mission approved, team deployment 0400. Colonel Howard approved request from Lt Barnes to lead and select rescue team. Personnel files attached._

He’s not surprised to see the names on the roster; Archie, Barnes, Green, Fowler… His entire team had thrown themselves into a rescue operation that hadn’t officially been sanctioned until the last minute when the Colonel realised that there was something more going on here than just a member of the USAF being MIA. Alex fights the feeling of fondness that rises in his chest. They could have been demoted, discharged or killed but they’d risked it all to come and find him.

> _Hollowford base manned with a skeleton crew, no sign of Jesse Manes or any of his children. Guard rotation information attached._
> 
> _[...]_
> 
> _Thermal scans show no non-terrestrial heat signatures however there is a significant energy drain. Colonel Howard suggested waiting for back up to arrive before attempting entry into the compound. Frontal assault likely the only option: the base is built into the mountain. No visible alternative entrance. Frontal assault may result in casualties._

Alex rubs his temples, dimming the screen slightly as though that’ll help the pounding in his temples. It doesn’t do much, but he’s become familiar with these headaches. The doctor couldn’t tell him what they were, some sort of lingering neurological damage from his time in captivity but the information on what they’d found - and the condition they’d found him in - had been immediately classified higher than Alex’s paygrade. He’d just been glad to be alive at that point, so he hadn’t thought too much about it, and his men looked like they’d been through hell. The last thing he’d wanted to do was make them worry more.

He wishes now, though, that he’d pushed harder then to find out what had happened to him.

He starts reading the medical report, the findings that detail his physical state in gruesome detail, but has to stop. It’s too much.

Alex doesn’t puke into the nearby trash can but it’s a close call.

***

“We have to do something,” Kyle says, leaning against the doorframe, breaking the tense silence that’s fallen over the room. He’s watching Michael and Barnes staring at each other over the coffee table, Barnes’ eyes are narrowed slightly and Michael’s bristling and Kyle - under any other circumstance would have loved this - doesn’t have time for Barnes flexing his muscles as Chairman of the I-Hate-Guerin club. “Alex is getting worse. Yesterday his memory lasted less than an hour, even with the notes he’s keeping.”

“He’s doing his best to Memento this shit,” Barnes agrees, ignoring the looks of confusion given to him by both Michael and Kyle. It’s not his fault they’re lacking in their pop-culture knowledge. “But it’s not working and he’s getting nosebleeds again. He’s not had those since-”

“-since you rescued him, I know,” Kyle interrupts, expression worried as he folds his arms across his chest.

Michael, who felt like he’d been doing an admirable job up until then of not snapping, snaps. “If you’re gonna keep talking about shit that happened when I wasn’t there then I might as well not be here.”

“True,” Barnes said without missing a beat. “You know where the door is, Guerin.”

“You know what, Barnes?” Michael starts, getting to his feet. A glass on the table between them rattles slightly but, to Michael’s ire, Barnes just looks bored.

“What, Guerin? You gonna lash out with your powers? Or punch me? Why, because I don’t like you? Because you weren’t there during Alex’s recovery? Not everything’s about you, it’s about _Alex_ and if you still can’t pull your head out of your ass to he-”

“This is getting us nowhere.” 

Kyle’s interruption isn’t quite enough to calm Michael down, but Barnes flips a switch back to the cool professional in an instant (something that irritates Michael even more). He sits back down, stretches his legs out in front of him and rests his arms on the overstuffed armrests like he owns the place. Michael hates him.

“You know what we need to do, right?” 

Michael looks between them, Barnes whose professional expression has suddenly darkened into something that’s somewhere between resolve and dismay and Kyle who looks like he’s confronting Death himself. He doesn’t know what it is that they need to do, but whatever it is, he’s going with them. 

“Yeah,” Barnes bites out, fingers curling into his palm and knuckles going white. “I know. It’s the only way to help him.”

Kyle nods. “It won’t be pleasant.”

Barnes’ snort is humourless. “You don’t gotta tell me that, Valenti, I’m the one who-” He breathes out through his nose and unclenches his fists. “We can leave in the morning.” 

There’s silence again and it’s too much for Michael to keep being patient and wait for them to suddenly share their plans with him. He wishes, not for the first time, that he was slightly more psychic, like Isobel, so he could just understand the secret conversations they were having, so he could just learn what it was he needed to know without relying on them to share it with him.

“What do we have to do?” Michael asks and both Kyle and Barnes look at him. Michael almost wishes he hadn’t said anything.

“Kyle and I go to Montana,” Barnes said, “back to where they were holding Alex. If there’s anything that’ll help reverse what’s been done to him, we’ll find it there.”

Michael says nothing for a moment, then looks up, resolute and firm in his convictions. “I’m coming too. If this is gonna help Alex, then I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Neither Barnes nor Kyle argues with him this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Barnes, Kyle and Michael go on a road trip. _What could possibly go wrong_.


	5. there is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _ Kyle tries not to think about how all the making up for his past behaviour in the world pales in comparison to the devotion Barnes shows to his commanding officer. How his desire to have his old best friend back is nothing but a dozen candles compared to the roaring flame he can see inside Michael, fanned by fear and the realisation that he might have lost his second - third - chance for good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m ba~ack! Short-ish chapter for you all and we can finally start the rapid downhill slope to the happy ending I promised all that time ago. Please heed the new tags <3 
> 
> Quote by Aaron Lauritsen.

_It’s cold. It’s cold and it’s dark and his shoulders ache. His eyes are blurry,  
vision tinged slightly red. He licks his upper lip and tastes sweat and copper  
and knows he’s been bleeding. It’s crusty on his tongue. His head’s heavy,  
hurts to move but he manages, blinking blearily as the room - dark,  
stone-and-metal walls, slightly musty, recycled air from the fan humming  
in the corner, only one exit, dim slit of light under the door he’s in a holding  
cell - swims into focus around him._

  


***

They’ve been in the car for less than four hours so far and Barnes is already poised to try and work out how to do the entire drive on his own and knock the bickering idiots out. Kyle’s making sniped comments while glaring at Michael in the rear view and Michael has alternated between sulking and snarling and making generally unhelpful comments. Some of them aimed at Kyle (out of mis-placed jealousy and a poor response to Kyle’s overprotectiveness) but most of them aimed at Barnes.

Barnes, Luke to his friends (and Kyle), couldn’t actually care less about the sniped comments from Michael but the tension in the car was beginning to get under his skin. He was a huge fan of the stiff upper lip mentality of his homeland but the fact that he’s been watching his commanding officer, his _best friend_, slowly falling apart since they came back to this fucking town is getting under his skin more than he wants to admit.

“I will knock you out,” he warns, pushing his aviators back up his nose and winding down the window, the rush of air into the car not quite drowning out Michael’s complaints. But turning the volume up on the radio certainly does (even if Kyle turned it down again after five minutes because _it’s bad for your hearing, Luke_, to which Michael sniped, while turning the volume back up again, _but it’s better than listening to you guys talking about Alex and me like I’m not here_).

***

“Kyle,” Michael says, leaning over the seat, “you’ve been driving for six hours, man. Give it a break. Let me take over for a while.”

“You even have a valid licence?” Kyle asks, the question a half-joke, turning his head slightly to look at Michael out of the corner of his eye. He is feeling tired, but he wants to get there as quickly as possible and the eighteen hour drive wasn’t going to do itself. He’d argued with Luke enough anyway to be allowed to drive first and he wanted to drive until he absolutely needed to stop.

Michael snorts and leans back, stretches his arms across the back seat like he’s the king of the back of the car. Kyle watches him in the rear view again and shakes his head a little. He recognises Michael’s anxious behaviours almost as well as he recognises Alex’s. Michael doesn’t answer him for a long moment before he lifts his hips and digs about in his wallet for his licence, tugging it out and squinting at the date. 

“Shit,” he mutters and Kyle just laughs a little. “Still, you can’t do the whole drive by yourself.”

“He doesn’t have to, Guerin,” Barnes says. Michael bristles and Kyle takes a breath, getting ready to mediate if an argument actually starts. Bickering is one thing, all three of them throwing jabs back and forth, but Barnes and Michael could probably seriously thrown down and Kyle needed to concentrate. “I’ll take over.”

“I’m fine.”

“For now, but six hours and we’ve only taken a break for petrol and piss.” Barnes sounds bored. Kyle knows he’s not. He’s on edge, there’s a muscle in his jaw that keeps ticking. “We’re gonna need to stretch our legs and shit soon enough, doc, you know that as well as I do.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But nothing. You know how much I hate to agree with Guerin,” behind them, Michael huffs, “but you need to rest properly. We can’t help Alex if we’re in a bloody ditch somewhere.”

“We’re on the interstate,” Kyle retorts which makes Michael bark out a laugh, “there’s not many ditches.”

“Besides, we’re meant to be helping Alex,” Michael pipes up and for a horrifying moment Kyle sees a future where Michael and Barnes _agree on things_ and that makes his head ache in a whole different way, “can’t do that if we’re dead. Montana’s not going anywhere if you stop and let someone else drive."

“Ugh,” Barnes groans theatrically and slams the sun visor up in annoyance with the situation, “quit saying shit that makes sense, Guerin.” 

Michael gives him a shit-eating grin and flips him the double bird. It all feels very forced and Kyle just sighs and flexes his hands around the wheel. 

He’s tired, but they need to help Alex.

He’s tired, but Michael doesn’t have a licence and Barnes is a military driver and Kyle’s _heard_ the stories from Alex about how Barnes drove in the desert. He wants to get to Montana alive, even if he has no idea what they’re walking into. 

“If I pull over at the next rest stop and let you take over, Luke, are you finally gonna tell us what we’re gonna find when we arrive?”

Kyle sees that muscle twitch in Luke’s jaw again.

“You don’t wanna know, Valenti.”

“I do,” Kyle presses, looking to Michael for back up. “We need to know, so we’re prepared. Because if it’s traumatised you, it might-”

“Completely fuck you up?” Barnes offered unhelpfully.

Michael rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen worse.” Kyle doesn’t need to look at Michael to know he’s thinking about Caulfield. Michael still gets a distinct tone in his voice whenever Caulfield was mentioned or referred to. He feels his own back stiffening, his hands tightening around the wheel. 

“Maybe,” Barnes says quietly, not looking back at Michael or even at Kyle. His head’s turned and he’s watching the scenery blur pass them. That muscle is still twitching. “But you didn’t have to pull Alex out of that place and then watch over him, afraid he wasn’t going to survive until our extraction could get him to a hospital.” 

That shuts them all up for the next forty minutes, when Kyle pulls over into the next rest stop. 

Barnes excuses himself immediately, the truck barely having rumbled to a halt when his feet hit the gravel of the car park to get some air.

***

_The cell’s dark. Though it smells damp and musty he can’t hear water.  
His wrists hurt from where they’ve been bound, shackles biting into the skin of his  
wrists. His shoulders ache; his arms are above his head, he can feel them bracketing  
his head as he forces himself to lift his head higher. He needs to see around him.  
He blinks a few times, trying to clear his vision, trying to stop the room from spinning but  
he feels sick._

_He closes his eyes again. He’s gone through torture training, he takes a slow breath  
in to control the nausea, to control the pain. Vision temporarily gone, he listened, he tried  
to hear something other than the hammering of his heart in his ears, the slight rustle of  
the fabric of his shirt against his ears._

_There are voices, but what they’re saying is indistinct. He can’t quite make it out  
but he’s pretty sure he hears his name. The voices don’t sound familiar, he doesn’t think,  
but the regular footsteps and heavy fall make him think maybe military boots. They aren’t  
the quietest shoes to walk in._

_There’s no one else in here, and he remembers stepping out to take a phone call,  
telling his team he needed to leave for a while as he’d been called in by the General and  
getting in his truck and then nothing._

_He’s alone, he’s been captured and no one’s going to come looking for him because  
they won’t even realise he’s missing._

_Alex Manes is going to have to rescue himself._

***

“How’d you do it?” Kyle asks, two days later, leaning against the side of the truck, topping up the tank. Barnes, because he’s an inexplicable human being who likes being high off the ground (he always wanted to be a sniper, but he prefers his job now and he’s still one hell of a fucking shot when he needs to be), is perched on top of the truck, having climbed up there using the open window. Michael’s inside, grabbing them snacks and one of those neck pillows so Kyle can collapse in the back and get the sleep he so desperately needs. The roadside motel are uncomfortable and he doesn’t like the harsh reminder that he’s really not used to this level of discomfort in the same way that Barnes and Michael are.

Barnes tips his head and looks at Kyle, sliding his aviators down his nose slightly. “Do what?” 

Kyle looks at him for a moment and then shakes his head. “Never mind. I just- you do realise we need to know. At least a little bit. So that we don’t walk in blind.”

“There’s a folder in the back,” Barnes offered with a deep breath. “Probably covered in Guerin’s boot-prints. Should give you the basics. It’s not even a black site. It’s… so far off the grid that-”

He slides off the car, boots hitting the floor hard and he leaned his broad shoulders against the truck, arms folded across his chest.

“Look, this place is hell on earth, Kyle. It-”

“I was there in Caulfield,” Kyle offers and Barnes just snorts.

“Caulfield was a mess,” he agrees, “the shit that happened there was-” he trails off, rubbing his thumb and forefinger along the bridge of his nose. There’s a sign for the Great Wolf Lodge Water Park. He focuses on that instead of on Kyle, who’s finished up pumping gas and is wiping his hands on his thighs. “-look. Call me a heartless bastard but what happened in Caulfield was horrible, but I didn’t see it. Didn’t have to drag Alex out of there because he couldn’t fucking walk. Didn’t have to see him tortur-”

“Okay, I get it.” Kyle represses a shudder. “Just don’t mention the comparison to Michael. He lost his mom in Caulfield.”

“Yeah,” Barnes mutters, “I know. Alex beat himself up over it for months. When it came up after we got him back he was different but I figured he was just…”

“Being Alex about it?”

“Yeah. Being Alex about it.”

Kyle’s quiet, frowns. He looks back towards the gas station where Michael’s probably grabbing the most disgusting shit he can think of just so that Barnes bitches for the next few hours. 

“You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Barnes’ eyebrow arches. “I do-“

“He’d have probably fooled us all, if-”

Barnes clears his throat, sees Michael leaving the building and hops off the roof. The gas pump clicks. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he says, and his eyes are filled with something Kyle can’t discern. “What does that say about us?”

Kyle doesn’t answer. Barnes doesn’t expect him to.

***

_He hurts. His shoulders ache, his fingertips are bloodied, his whole body  
feels like a blossoming bruise, blooming over his skin in fresh ripples of a sharp,  
rolling ache as though he’s a sunflower constantly shifting to follow the sun. His  
ears are ringing with the ghost of questions that he can’t answer. No- not can’t.  
**Won’t.** Questions he won’t answer because he won’t compromise his  
friends like that. Won’t compromise Mi-_

_He closes his eyes, categorises his body. His ribs are broken but he’s had  
worse. They’ve taken his prosthetic away from him, body hanging by his wrists  
suspended above his head and the toe of his left leg is brushing the floor, not  
quite enough to provide him with relief for his shoulders. But he’s had worse._

_When the heavy door opens again, he’s ready. Head hanging limp he breathes  
in deeply and listens as the steps come closer. The man is speaking English into an  
earpiece - of course he is, he’s State-side, hasn’t been in the middle of the action  
for a while now - and half-closed eyes see the glint of keys on a chain sitting at  
the waist of a man in black fatigues. _

_As he approaches, Alex tenses his core, hauls himself up and latches his  
thighs around the neck of the man nearest him, tugging him in and using the leverage  
and additional height to free his hands. The almost dead weight of his body brings them  
both crashing down and Alex hits the ground hard enough that for a moment the world’s  
jarred out white but he’s just choked a man unconscious with his thighs and his  
prosthetic has to be around here somewhere. No time to take stock._

_His bones are rattling, the impact on already damaged parts of him making  
everything lurch sickeningly but he’s survived worse and made it home.  
He won’t die here._

_A piercing sound slices through the air as he shifts onto his knee, balancing his  
hands on the floor as best he can. It drills into his mind like a never-ending question  
and he can’t cover his ears quickly enough to stop it. The sound lances into his brain,  
piercing his thoughts and when he blacks out he thinks about Michael and how sorry  
he is and hears a pleased voice saying **yes, tell me more**_.

***

Kyle doesn’t really sleep, he sits in the back and reads through the file that’s covered in Michael’s boot prints over and over until his eyes hurt. Then he lays back across the seats and closes his eyes and seethes. Anger ripples through him at even the most basic of information that’d been gathered, the file is thin on the ground - Barnes wasn’t lying at the contents being harrowing but Kyle knows that even this is a sanitised version of what they actually saw.

After a couple of hours he dozes, to the awkward, heavy silence that’s hanging in the air between Barnes and Michael, who’s taken over as driver for a while. The radio’s on but it does absolutely nothing to diffuse the tension in the air or the way that Michael’s hands are gripping the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles are white, frustration in the lines of his jaw. It does nothing to even remotely reduce the simmering anger under Barnes’ skin borne and Kyle tries not to think about how, by this point, Barnes has known Alex longer than Michael and certainly better than Kyle ever has. How of the three people in this car, only two of them have the right to say they’ve stood by Alex through some kind of hell and neither of them are him. He knows that of the three people in this car, only one of them can say he’s never walked away when Alex needed him. 

Kyle tries not to think about how all the making up for his past behaviour in the world pales in comparison to the devotion Barnes shows to his commanding officer. How his desire to have his old best friend back is nothing but a dozen candles compared to the roaring flame he can see inside Michael, fanned by fear and the realisation that he might have lost his second - third - chance for good.

He tries not to think about the report, Alex broken and bleeding from his ears, muttering nothing but his name, rank and serial number for a week even after they managed to get him to a hospital and how, when he woke up, there was nothing in his eyes but emptiness.

Lulled by the car, eventually, Kyle drifts off and dreams about Caulfield and black-ops sites and being absolutely, and completely helpless.

***

“What the fuck, Barnes?”

Michael’s voice is loud enough that the explosion makes Kyle jump in the back seat. He blinks, bleary and confused and finds that they’ve stopped in a layby. Cars and trucks are rushing past, making the jeep wobble a little. Sitting up, he sees that Michael’s hand is flat against the wheel and Kyle’s sleepy brain recognises the slapping sound he’d heard as likely belonging to the action of Michael slamming his hand into the wheel. 

“If you wanted to get there by nightfall you should keep driving,” is the clipped response from the soldier in the passenger seat. Kyle feels the seatbelts around him shaking with Michael’s telekinesis, the hair on his arms standing on end. “Stopping right now to yell at me isn’t going to help anyone, Guerin, least of all Alex.”

Before he can ask what’s going in, Barnes speaks again. His voice, on the surface, is calm, but Kyle’s had enough conversations with him to know that that’s nothing more than a very poor veneer. He can hear the anger under the words. Telekinetic or not, if it came down to a fight, Kyle thinks it might be a pretty close call.

“Yeah,” Michael bites out, “Alex.”

“Yes,” Barnes replies. “Alex. You know, the guy whose heart you b-”

“You don’t know a fucking thing about it,” Michael gets out of the car, slams the door shut. Somewhere nearby, the garbage can in the layby explodes, tipping over violently. Michael’s boots kick up dust as he paces angrily back and forth outside, clearly torn between wanting to fight Barnes and fight himself. 

“No,” Barnes says, getting out of the car as well and moving to the driver’s side. “But I know enough. Get in the car, Guerin. I’m eager to get this over and done with so we can get back to Alex, to fix whatever shite they did to his head. Not so he can remember you and the bullshit you pulled because he’s been a lot happier without that fucking trauma laying over him but because it’s the right fucking thing to do. And if you want to stay here and throw shit around with your mind, so be it, but you didn’t have to come on this trip. I didn’t invite you.”

Michael’s eyes are blazing, ready to throw down and Kyle sticks his head out of the window. 

“You didn’t,” he interjects, “but you invited me and even if you don’t want to admit it, having Michael here is probably going to help.” 

He looks at Michael, trying to tell him that he’s wanted with nothing more than his eyes. He doesn’t know how successful he is but Michael stalks back to the car, kicks the wheel once for good measure, and the whole jeep jolts with his telekinetic boost, and climbs into the back.

His voice is low when he leans towards Michael, the jeep rumbling to life beneath them as Barnes peels away from the layby and starts them on their journey again. He tries to tell Michael that it’s not his fault (_it is,_ Barnes interrupts, _everything he’s ever done has been to protect you_) and that when this is over, when they get back, they can work out how to move forward (Barnes snorts from the front seat and Kyle grinds his teeth together to stop himself from snapping at the solider that _you’re not helping_ because he knows that’s not what Barnes is interested in). 

At least, they could all agree, they were doing this for Alex. It wasn’t quite enough for an uneasy truce, but it was enough to get them moving again, to get the silence in the car to feel oppressive rather than murderously oppressive and that was enough of a distinction for now. 

After all, only a few hours later, Barnes turns the jeep off the main road and down towards what looks like a beaten service track. His grip on the steering wheel which had loosened a little over the time tightened again, the line of his mouth and the set of his shoulders going rigid the further down the bumpy track they drove. 

Trees start surrounding them, bushes scratching along the paintwork and low-hanging branches battering the top of the jeep but Barnes keeps driving, Kyle’s fingers curl into fists as he rests them on his knees and he fights the urge to look away from the destination that looms ahead of them. The colour has fled from Michael’s face when the base, large and grey and decommissioned appears, camouflaged with some kind of moss along the tops of the building, as haunting as Caulfield with darkened windows that lead into the base of the mountain vast and empty and horrifying, deep enough into an expanse of mountainous woodland in Montana that no one would find it unless they were really looking for it. 

Barnes pushes open his door and steps outside, the lines of his face dark and angry and his voice is shaking a little as he says, with a sweeping gesture, “Welcome to Project Gabriel.”


End file.
